Robin Thicke covers this week’s issue of Billboard magazine. In the feature, entitled White Like Me, Thicke candidly discusses everything from race, rebelling, and making his new album, Something Else, in stores September 30. Check out some of this interesting interview:

On his album’s focus on race:

These new songs are talking about a time for change and hope; to get away from all the sadness, loneliness and depression that I used to live in. This album expresses the celebration I’m going through and the healing I want to give to people. It’s also about what’s going on in the world with politics and race. The closer Barack Obama gets to the White House, it’s all about race now. They’re all trying to make it seem like he is playing the race card when he’s just an American running for president. How my wife and I still aren’t able to walk in Mississippi without people looking at us like we’re crazy. The laws may have changed, but the whispering hasn’t.

On the lukewarm response to his debut album:

By the time we finished the whole process, we sold only 70,000 records. After putting a lot of money behind me, the label pretty much lost faith in my ability to sell. It became a question of, “Where does he fit? Is he not rock or pop enough? Is he not soul enough?”

Although the album was an economic failure, I had Usher, Mary J. Blige, Faith Evans, Lil Wayne, Pharrell, Puff Daddy and others calling to work with me.

On quitting music:

No, because music is my life. There were a couple of thoughts about maybe quitting on life altogether. I didn’t have the knife on my arm, but emotionally I thought, “God, what am I here for? You tell me that I’m supposed to make music. I feel this and know I’m supposed to, but you won’t give it to me.”

On his fight against the “blue-eyed soul” tag:

It’s a joke. It’s like saying I can’t do rock’n'roll. As musicians, we’re dying for those things to go away. We’re just hoping we can make the music that we want to and not be pigeonholed by our skin color. Yet it affects me all the time.

When I did a recent interview with Vibe magazine I asked, “Why can’t I get the cover? This is a magazine I love. If there’s one magazine that I’d want to be on the cover of, it’s Vibe.” Their response was they don’t have white artists on the cover; that the only white artist they’ve had on the cover was Eminem. I guess if that’s what it is, it is what it is. And I respect that because I live in a house with a black woman. I won’t use the word “racism.” I will say it’s a tough—but rewarding—fight.

Trust me, there’s a lot more you’ll want to check out. Read the full interview when the magazine hits newsstands August 30.

photo credit: Cover Awards

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